Annotated Turing Petzold Charles

Programming Legend Charles Petzold unlocks the secrets of the extraordinary and prescient 1936 paper by Alan M. Turing

Mathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer known as the Turing Machine; in an age before computers, he explored the concept of what it meant to be computable, creating the field of computability theory in the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming.

The book expands Turings original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations; the author elaborates on and clarifies many of Turings statements, making the original difficult-to-read document accessible to present day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others.

Interwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turings own life: his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis during